Friday, 4 February 2011

That's not a knife - epilogue

Back in August 2010 the post That's not a knife....THAT'S a knife discussed the case of Rodney Knowles who had been arrested in February 2010 for having a knife in his car. He had pleaded guilty to that in April, but complained bitterly to the press, who took up the story.

The result was that the next month, May, the police found themselves having to explain to holiday makers that an offence would depend on whether there was or was not a good purpose for having the knife of the limited permitted dimensions.

They maintained, however, that they were right to make the arrest and that as Mr Knowles had pleaded guilty to the bare offence, no further details had come out in court. Mr Knowles' own representative, Jolyon Tuck said in exasperation:

"I can say quite safely Mr Knowles has no comment to make."

In July Knowles was charged with serious sexual offences which allegedly took place many years earlier. They included grooming, rape, sexual assault and threats which meant the victims dared not complain.

This week the trial was finally concluded and Knowles was convicted of eight counts of rape, 15 counts of indecency with a child and seven indecent assaults. The threats against the victims had been so effective that they had not been able to go to the police for decades. Knowles pleaded not guilty and maintains the accusations were fabrications. Knowles will serve at least 10 years in prison before he is eligible to ask about parole.

There is a difficulty with what are termed 'historic abuse' cases in that time really does put a question mark over testimony, so it might thought that this is a case of a disabled old man being victimized.

That's not what the whisper-wall says, although you don't have to believe it. It says that Knowles was a wrong'un who used his disability to either make people think he was a victim or to make himself immune from complaints.

Indeed, but this version is only the latest chapter of a very old Order problem: how do you use the Law to discourage young men from knifing each other outside of battlefields and self-defence?

The move to law is an advance. Previous methods included vendetta but it turned out nobody could keep score.

We've tried various approaches; making it expensive through weregild and tort systems, trying to outlaw the behaviour, and now we are having a go at outlawing the implements.

I don't think this latest one based on 'no pointy stabby cutty things' is consistent with a free and competent society, but it is a handy strict liability charge which the police are supposed to use very thoughtfully.

Knowles case is only accidentally connected to that. It happened to be the charge they used initially and it wasn't very accurate, although technically it fitted.

His real offence was to threaten to knife someone, and I'm guessing that was someone connected to the later trial simply because of the way the defending solicitor behaved.

lt's not well known but most gangs now have cooking lessons which allows them as 'chefs' to carry knives for their 'profession'.

Another not well known fact is that the vast majority of mothers of these youths believe there exists such a thing as 'the cooking knife monster' who habitually steal the knives out of their kitchens. They believe that the monster is friends with the 'sock monster' and 'knicker monster' :)